Snowmobile basic trail and maintenance tips?

[Rex in OTZ]

Some Pic's of trail stock.

[Dand]

nice pics Rex.  Say my parts order FINALLY came from Babbits last week!!! They forgot to send my order to the warehouse to pull the parts first try. Then they didn't have the bumper tho their website said it was in stock. My original order was placed in late March or early April.  I called them in early May when I hadn't heard from them. They got going on the order but finally shipped it June 15 and it took a while to get here. Guess I'll need to build a new bumper like the ones you show.

For good news my 115 Yamaha jet is running well after chasing down all the coil problems. And my Lund is at the welder's for repairs. I sure shredded my net fishing out of the Hewescraft. Hope to get the Lund back in a week or two.

Have all our jars filled and the freezer pretty well stocked with reds - bad king year. Hope to put in a bunch of silvers late in the month.
Summer is flying by.

[Rex in OTZ]

My strawberry Roan is down with a belly ache, she wouldent go when I put the spurrs to her.
In otherwords my 1986 Honda Trx250 is down with no spark, after putting in a new sparkplug found she still wouldent start, so started chaseing sparky, everything checked according to the shop manual till I Ohm'd out the pulsor pick up coil, I thought maybe it was bad electricly, assuming the pick up was bad I went ahead and removed the engines Lt side cover, I found a bad pick up sensor and....a whole lot worse, the starter drive splines were all galled off the starter shaft, the spur gear teeth that the starter rides on were all sheard off as well, the little hardened steel teeth rattled round in the Mag rotor munching the flywheel and stator and all the nifty 1986 era pick-up's that are not the same as the TRX 300 parts.
A glimmer on the horizon I may have a lead on used parts, the village dump 48 AIR miles SE of here may have what I need....now just flying there after I find a flywheel puller for that model TRX.

I hadent used the electric start in 7 years just kick starting it, daughter borrowed The Honda to see camp friends, she was long over due on returning, I figured a couple teen girls out & about with Daddys ATV they must be out Hookey Bobing round somewhere, I headed out twards where she said she was going, I found her broke down a couple miles up the trail she was trying to start it when I got there, we managed to get it towed back with no problems, She did mention it made a crunching and short rattling noise a moment right before it quit.
shes lobbying for a new ATV.

[Rex in OTZ]

Just poped off the ole Puma for a couple minuets this weekend, she ran ok.
The Yamaha Venture will need more attention.

I cannot wate for these bugs to go away for the winter.

Couple my fav winter type sites to see.  www.iceshanty.com for ice fishing
                                                       www.plowsite.com   for snow plowing

[Rex in OTZ]

Had found the problem stem'd from the electric start gearing messed up dropping some gear teeth down on the Flywheel rotating magnets attract lil bits of steel like that so it happeded that it jambed in ther tearing up all sorts of stuff.
Had a friend in WLK get parts off a junker 1980's era TRX 250es at the dump, air freighted the parts to Ole Rex, picked up from Era termnal on Friday Sept 3rd, was drizzle wind and rain most the weekend, on LaborDay afternoon my oldest daughter and I got the 250 back together and running by by 19:30 so took it for a run round the patch, brought er back to the barn and hitched the trailer for some yard cleaning before snow flies, next morning was dark and steady rain, went out round the corner the house and the Honda wasnt where I'd parked it, trailer was but no ATV... it was sitting 20yds down the street with the ignition switch barrel sitting on the seat and the wires all hanging out the handlebar console....Damn!...Stinking Drunks looking for a free ride in the rain, they dident get far with the rig, messed up the ignition switch, On-line Babbits wanted over $40+ shipping, yesterday I managed to cobble the switch back together,  solderd the wires back on with some refernce from My Honda service manual wire diagram.
glomed on some 3m 5200 boat hull sealant, once it sets up should be able to hold the wire's ok to the back the switch as the drunkin YoYo's had broke off the riveted wire support on back side the switch.
Ran the Honda last night, Its not happy poping and farting chokeing down some old lawnmower gas I put in the tank, it'll need fresh gasoline soon, Its loud need to rewrap aluminum tape round the muffler joint, See I scavanged a Honda 300 muffler and fit it to it, used some all thread to make a new hanger bracket as the mount holes were all wrong, I slit the pipe and spread to fit over the TRX 250es-A header pipe and hose clamped it all down, makeing do in the boonies, mabe need to set the valve clearances and check the timing as the rotor ignition pick-ups are different.

[Rex in OTZ]

Newbie moved up last month, attempted to gas Yamaha Blaster on Saturday, resulted in allot of gasoline dripping out it like a sieve, I was near by and mentioned that the carb drain was on, It wasnt it was gas running out the overflow/vent, the gas tank valve was leaking out the face as well.
The 2001 Yamaha was in central CA before the move, suspect that methinol blended or oxygeninated gas to blame?
Ole Rex's '86' TRX 250 Honda has some wx-checking but certainly nothing like the stuck carb float and leaky valve of the blaster.

[Rex in OTZ]

I had been asked about DYI beaver snare's
I went to the Alaska Trappers Assn website www.alaskatrappers.org
They had some neat stuff Archived
some in the ATA archive :     Thoughts On The TundraII by Marty Meierotto
                                        Makeing It Back by Marty Meierotto
                                        A Cold Weather Story by Mike Johnson

[Rex in OTZ]

This rig was parked out front the OTZ ACE hardware store.

yes that is a extra high windshield for the old Tundra.
The windshield was laced useing Tuna leader like type used when laceing basket sled stanchions to runners.

[Dand]

that would be  very nice bucking those winds you get.  Man, I've been hauling wood the last 2 wks with my 91 Panther.  Its going well. Talked to 2 trappers tho who are having real troubles with their 2 yr old Skidoos - don't know the model.  Broken bulkheads, blown engines.  I don't think they're hauling big loads either.  One may be traveling fast and hard as he's a serious wolf hunter and covers lots of ground.  Guess I'll keep the old Mt. Cat grinding along.  Bout done with wood.

[Rex in OTZ]

 One the fellas at work has a weakness for running wolves too, even he says he abuses his machine (he says he knows better) guess the hunt lust is so that its damn the torpedos full speed ahead he has I think a 2006 550 and had like 3-4 burn up issues with it, he thinks he has it fixed, he bought his outta fairbanks, the new uncrated rig shipped to OTZ had carb jets for high altitude he stated the shop wouldent fix the engine the second time it burnd down they couldent figure why? he also states he premixes all gas so he does not rely on the oil injection pump, another is the carb mounting boots crack in one season and to keep an eye on that as a cracked carb boot causes a intake leak so the cylinder goes lean and burns up, also with air cooled rigs its best to use them pesky rubber sparkplug boots on the cylinders, especially the clutch side as thats like a loss of 17% your cooling air across your hotest cylinder if your pulling a sled you always premix the gas (even when your useing a oil pump)also should go one step up in main jet size just for that reason alone and only carry a new spare never leave town with a half shot beltseems when you need a spare belt is because your in the poodoo and need a better belt to bail yer butt out and a 1/2 fried belt is not the time when your 14miles away from trail and its all 1.5foot or deeper snow (sucky walk) last spring had a crappy belt bad towing conditions and loaded sled and no trail = hot engine and very bad belt, the spare piece of junk was worse, I tossed the hot belt in the snow to cool and idled the engine fore a long time sprinkling powdery snow in the fan side to assist cooling as she was hot as a fire cracker, lucky I could pull off the side shields to allow heat to dissapate from the cowl as I wasnt traveling fast enuf to ram feed cool air in the though the area below the belt guard.

[Rex in OTZ]

 Well its warming up and the snow is punchy in my parts, this means heavy loading the sno-go engine and slow ground speed in come case's this means excessive cowling temps from hot belt and slow speed so you wont have the ram air needed to clear out the heat built from the drive belt as on air cooled snowmobiles is the axial fan which does not cool the clutch in alaska this means pulling a sled which dont help, if you have a  aircooled snowmobile with removeable side pannels nows the time to pull em off to help dissapate the heat, roasting a belt only will get the primary clutch hot and may in extreme cases get the cranhshaft hot enuf to burn/blow out the clutch side crankshaft seal, once this pops you go lean on the clutch side and will burn the clutch side piston, also pay attention to warm temps all that frozzen vapor and snow in fuel tank will turn up as a slug of water to one or both carburators and can cause leaning which will also cause burnt piston and rings.

[Rex in OTZ]

A fellow from Selawik just finished relating his tale of travel from Selawik to Noorvik to Kotzebue on his stock 2008 550 Edge trail 'this particular machine had burned pistons 3 times in the past', it broke down half way accross Kobuk lake with a toasted Lt piston Luckily the ring stuck and had no compression, before leaving home on a hunch the guy had grabbed a new piston and rings off the bench before leaving and put in his traveling bag.
It took him 2.5 hours standing along the trail to replace the piston and continue on to Kotzebue town.
The Polaris 550 fancooled engine has had over heating issues in the past, The guy said his main jets were 240 mikuni jets, The 2004 550 trails Im familure with the service book states 300 main jets for that years model I upped them one size 310 on Lt and 300 on Rt.
I called Hatcher Pass Polaris and the shop lead stated that the newer 550's use a leaner jet than the 2004's, he said they are ok when rideing single But if rideing in colder temps or pulling a sled at lower trail speeds you risk over heating the engine.
Air cooled engines as a rule run a richer main jet on the Clutch side (Lt) and the cooler jet on the fan side.
 The Tec recomended going one size richer on the main jets, also installing a Polaris Kit that runs a oil pump return line to the oil Resivor so if the engine heats it wont get air lock in the oil injecter line and sieze the engine due to lack of adiquate 2 cycle oil.
I say add the return kit ($40) and up the main jet one size and adjust the air pilot screw a little on the rich side and add 2-3oz of 2-cycle to the gas tank when gassing and have even tweaked up the injecter pump rigging marks so it will slaightly run more oil.
The way the factory has them set up they will work if your farting round and travel at high speeds for short distances and short periods, they wernt set to handle 2-3 hours of trail pulling a laden sled at mid to low speed.

[Rex in OTZ]

Ever been to camp and needed gasket paper?? Hours boatride to the closest village NAPA stor?
Ive used the A.C. Store(Alaska Commercial Company) calendar backing before, and #1 choice is the box from Sailor Pilot Bread Crackers.
Alaska's #1 camp staple

[Dand]

great tip!  But I usually leave the box home.